What makes a Swashbuckler swash?

[petermorwood]

The various home-burned DVDs of movies saved from TV have been mostly transferred from unlabelled jewel cases (which might contain a CD, a DVD, a data/installation disk or just be empty) to proper library cases. Once they've got proper labels, they'll be a lot easier to find. Some of the tidying has produced a "why did I save this?" reaction - at least they're mostly RWs, so can be RW'en - but every now and then there's a "Wow, so there it is!" and one of those reactions was prompted by finding the Errol Flynn Captain Blood. I thought I'd loaned it to someone and forgotten who; turns out I'd put it somewhere safe and forgotten where.

I caught this on TCM more than four years ago, and was delighted to find incidents and lines of dialogue I didn't remember from Sunday afternoons on BBC1; it turns out the Beeb was showing a trimmed re-release, and the original (this one) is about 20 minutes longer, running almost exactly two hours. According to IMDb, this is the original running time; I suspect those 20 minutes were cut from the re-release to make room for commercials in a two-hour TV slot, and the BBC were simply showing the cut they had available.

Captain Blood is a bit of a curiosity; it's one of the great cinematic swashbucklers, and yet the swashbuckling is surprisingly understated. The actual "piratical" part of the drama doesn't begin until the 45th minute and I think, though haven't checked, that the very word pirate isn't used until that same point.

In addition, and despite its fame in the swashbuckling genre, there's only one major swordfight in the entire film, short, but perfect, when Blood (Flynn) confronts Levasseur (Basil Rathbone) on a rocky Caribbean shore. There are no other plot-point duels at all, and by comparison with modern examples, very little in the way of on-screen action of any sort except for the final battle between Blood's Arabella and the French warships bombarding Port Royal. Even a major plot development like Blood's advancement from runaway slave to famous buccaneer takes place mostly in montage and title-card.

This probably reflects the movie's smallish budget; a nitpicker (like me) can see where quite a lot of the intercut and back-projected ship-to-ship footage was lifted from other movies - The Sea Hawk of 1924 is supposedly one of them, but I'm sure I saw HMS Victory or a similar Napoleonic three-decker at least twice.

None of this detracts from Captain Blood's quality as a rattling good yarn. Yes, it may move a bit slowly for modern tastes (though it's by no means as leisurely as some) but since there's no mass of special effects or CGI for any lack of plot to hide behind, the film has to stand or fall on its story - and it stands remarkably well.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

It's one of the great classic swashbucklers, with the Ronald Colman Prisoner of Zenda, and the other Lancaster vehicle, The Flame and the Arrow. (The plot of the latter is deeply foolish, but it has some terrific set pieces.) And I recently came by the silent French serial (12 eps) of The Three Musketeers, which is seriously fabulous.

[petermorwood.livejournal.com]

Look two posts back on my LJ for more about The Prisoner of Zenda... :)

[cuddles-batcave.livejournal.com]

Jeez the last time I saw it on TCM, their copy was really worn and even spotted some scorch marks! You also mentioned intercuts for THE SEA HAWK (another fine movie I can watch over & over) which doesn't surprise me much. If you get the chance, hoping you can wing a copy to The Batcave.

BTW, do you guys have CAST A DEADLY SPELL & WITCHHUNT you could squeeze on the same CD burn?

[petermorwood.livejournal.com]

We don't have Witchhunt, but I think Cast a Deadly Spell is still on VHS tape somewhere. I'll have a rummage around and see if I can find it. If so, this'll be a two-DVD burn; Captain Blood was recorded at best quality, and needs a disk all to itself.

[cuddles-batcave.livejournal.com]

Sweeeet!

[murphys-lawyer.livejournal.com]

If you can't find it, I have it on Laserdisc...

Cast a Deadly Spell on LaserDisc

[mhill4.livejournal.com]

Do you want to sell this LaserDisc? If so, I am interested.

Michael Hill
Columbus, OH
mhill4@columbus.rr.com

Re: Cast a Deadly Spell on LaserDisc

[murphys-lawyer.livejournal.com]

Er... how can I put this?...

No.

Sorry.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

Have you heard there may be a remake?

I loved all the Errol Flynn Swashbuckling movies and Burt Lancaster's too.

Was Captain Blood the one where he slides down the sail using his dagger?

[petermorwood.livejournal.com]

I had indeed heard about the remake; hardly surprising, given the current popularity of pirate stuff. The 1935 Flynn version was itself a remake - the first Captain Blood film was in 1924! - and there've been a couple of other movies using the character since then. While none are quite as good as the first - (Captain Blood: His Odyssey - it's in Gutenberg) Rafael Sabatini wrote two two more short-story collections about him. While in Gutenberg, take a look at the "Captain Sharkey" stories in The Green Flag by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; they have a very different view of pirates and piracy.

Let's just hope this latest one gets done right. I don't want to see another Cutthroat Island; that fiasco killed anything to do with pirates stone dead until Pirates of the Caribbean came out.

According to Swordsmen of the Screen by Jeffrey Richards (required reading for lovers of cinema swashbuckling) that sail-sliding stunt first appeared in The Black Pirate (1926) and was performed by Douglas Fairbanks Senior. Here's how it was done: the sail was pre-slit, the dagger-hilt was fixed to a wire rig, and Doug held on tight... The stunt was used again, by Errol Flynn in Against All Flags (1952) and Burt Lancaster in The Crimson Pirate (also 1952) - and I've a vague memory of having seen it in a more modern movie as well, though I can't remember which one.

I'm sure this has been said before, but the Star Wars movies, and especially the very first one, aren't really science fiction films at all; they're swashbucklers in space-opera makeup...

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

Ah the sail slitting was in one of the PotC films. I remember Lancaster did it in Crimson Pirate (my favourite pirate movie)but I couldn't remember which one Errol did it in.

I agree about the Star Wars movies too!

[cindyg.livejournal.com]

Captain Blood stands up there with Scaramouche and Robin Hood (the Errol Flynn version) in any list of my favorite classic swashbucklers. Oh, and mustn't forget Zorro, starring Tyrone Power - I *love* that movie beyond all reason.

They are the standard by which I measure all other movies of the genre.

:)

[petermorwood.livejournal.com]

Ahh, Scaramouche! That was another BBC Sunday afternoon regular. Despite the revenge-motif plot, which you'd think would darken it, this always seems a very cheerful film.

It might be because of the constant thread of humour - Andre (Granger) Moreau's relationship with his two love interests and their rivalry with each other would be portrayed very differently nowadays, and probably not for the better.

Or it might be because Moreau beats the villainous Marquis (Mel Ferrer) De Mayne in fair fight (and what a fight - for a long time the longest sword combat in cinema history) disarms him, then lets him live. (Mirroring the fight at the beginning, where De Mayne beat and disarmed Moreau's best friend, then ran him him through.) A modern version would almost certainly have De Mayne then go for his abandoned sword to justify finishing him off, since he "deserved it"; this doesn't happen here.

The reason why Moreau doesn't kill him is a mystic realisation that they're long-separated brothers. That's always seemed too neat; I share my Mum and Dad's view, from all those years ago, that Moreau was simply the better man, someone who wouldn't descend to the villain's level.

Great flick.

[mowi.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, I just saw Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk for the first time this past month... I absolutely adore them both, the former moreso than than the latter, though this is probably due to the addition of Basil Rathbone... Oh, how I love that man... and being French, no less!

Also, HI!! <3 I miss you guys so much.

[petermorwood.livejournal.com]

You just saw...? Woo-hoo, I grew up with them; classic Sunday afternoon fare on the BeebBeebCee. Watching swashbucklers led to more dinged cutlery than I'm willing to admit, and there wasn't an entire bamboo raspberry cane to be found anywhere in the garden...

If you're a Rathbone fan, you should check out The Mark of Zorro (with Tyrone Power as the Big Z) and you have seen The Adventures of Robin Hood, haven't you? :-P

As for HI! - if everything goes according to plan you might be seeing us sometime in the early part of next year. We're not counting any chickens yet, but we might risk counting some eggs around Christmastime...

[mowi.livejournal.com]

Yep, I've seen both of those -- The Adventures of Robin Hood was a childhood favorite of mine, which led to my own share of dinged cutlery (I got very accurate at knife-throwing, though unfortunately most actual weapons aren't balanced the same as kitchen utensils)... and, admittedly, some practice time with my father's wakazashi when both parents were out of the house...

There are still quite a few more movies of that genre I would love to see; though my movie education is more extensive than most of my generation, I am still missing a few. Daddy tried to show me Scaramouche when I was too young to appreciate it, so I still have not seen that, and I do want to see By The Sword again -- I'm fairly certain you actually showed me that one, once upon a time in Ireland. :D

I would love to see you both again, truly -- I very much look forward to talking with you now that I'm All Grown Up (or so they say). <3 Remind your wife she owes me an email. ;D

[petermorwood.livejournal.com]

I remember that wakizashi/katana combo above the fireplace; I did a bit of flourishing with them myself (though now have some European repros which I prefer; that's one of them on my avatar.)

I think I still have By the Sword on a VHS tape (probably in the same box as Cast a Deadly Spell, mentioned above - I haven't found that yet either. The tape is the wrong region for you, but if I find it, I can burn you a DVD; I don't know if the home-burned discs are Euro Region 2, or non-region-specific, but it might be worth a try. And do check out Scaramouche; it really is a lot of fun.

Diane says you owe her an email, about some chapter or other she sent you (and now I'll step back out of the line of fire...)